In the evolution of electrical components, especially computer related electrical components, electrical connectors have become extremely specific to various applications and hardware peripherals. While most connectors require manual mating and release, some connectors are equipped with mechanical release mechanisms. These release mechanisms facilitate the removal of the mating device or connector and are useful in situations where the mating device or connector is repeatedly inserted and removed. Generally, the type of connectors that are equipped with such release mechanisms are those which temporarily couple a device such as a diskette or an IC card, one type of which is known as a PCMCIA (Personal Computer Memory Card International Association) card, to the computer in order to store or receive data contained on the particular diskette or IC card. The diskette or IC card may be one type of a mating device that must be electrically coupled to the computer via the connector. The PCMCIA card usually contains one type of program or data and thus must be removed from the connector before another PCMCIA card is inserted therein.
Receiving connectors for PCMCIA type cards have a plurality of extending, electrically conductive contacts or terminals that are adapted to be received in and be electrically coupled to mating contacts/sockets on or in the mating PCMCIA card. The PCMCIA cards are generally a plastic encased, populated circuit board of LSI-type chip. The case has a plurality of corresponding sockets that function in one respect to receive the contacts of the connector and allow electrical coupling with the internal circuit. The connector is generally a frame having side slots to guide the PCMCIA card therein. This facilitates the registration of the respective electrical contacts. The PCMCIA card connector also includes a card release or ejector mechanism in order to remove the PCMCIA card from the connector. In general, the release mechanism is manually actuated through a button usually located on one side of the frame. Pushing the button inwardly thus ejects the PCMCIA card through the release mechanism.
Any more, it is desirable to have several PCMCIA cards accessible to the computer at any given time. To this end, such card connectors are stacked or superposed and then mounted to a chassis or printed circuit board (PCB). This piggyback mounting conserves space. Currently, the PCMCIA card connectors are stacked in pairs, and are known as double-deck card connectors or headers. The double-deck card connector naturally includes two card ejection mechanisms to remove the two cards from the respective connector. The card ejection mechanisms have an eject or ejection button that is used to manually actuate the ejection mechanism. The prior art card connectors have their two eject buttons located either on the same or opposite sides of the connector.
However, in the case where the eject buttons are on opposite sides of the double-deck connector, the connector takes up more physical space. On the other hand, when the eject buttons are located on the same side, there is a limitation on the size of the buttons. Regardless of the end design, ejection of a card is difficult with the prior art designs. Furthermore, accidental ejection of the wrong card may occur in prior art connectors causing consumer frustration.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,197,894 entitled "Electrical Connector Equipped With A Release Mechanism" issued to Koike on Mar. 30, 1993, discloses a double-deck IC card connector/header having an ejection mechanism actuated by a single eject actuation button. The eject actuation button is located at one side of the connector/header. However, this single eject actuation button sequentially ejects the two cards depending on how far the eject actuation button is depressed. Additionally, the sequence of card ejection is predetermined by the design such that there is a first and second card ejection order. Thus, one would have to eject both cards in order to eject the second card. Also, the accidental ejection of the second card may occur if the eject actuation button is depressed too far when trying to eject the first card.
Thus, with the '894 patent, if the ejection of the second card in the sequential order is desired, the first card in the sequential order must be ejected before the ejection of the second card. The first card must therefore be reinserted into the connector in addition to the second card.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a card connector that has a single button or mechanism for the selective ejection of either one of both cards in a double-deck card connector.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a larger, more user friendly single button or mechanism for the selective ejection of either one of both cards in a double-deck card connector.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a single button or mechanism for the selective ejection of either one of the two cards while preventing ejection of the non-selected card during actuation of the button in a double-deck card connector.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a PCMCIA card connector/header that has a single ejection button or actuation mechanism for both the upper and lower cards that is positionable to selectively eject the upper or lower card and which further includes a selection lockout mechanism to prevent accidental ejection of the non-selected card.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a PCMCIA card connector/header as above that is biased into its initial position once selection and ejection of the desired card is achieved.